New chapter chairs have big goals

Andrea Vásquez, the recently elected HEO chapter chair, looks forward to developing new union activists who will organize around union concerns in her cross-campus chapter.

As a part of building support for the strike authorization vote, newly elected Higher Education Officer Chapter Chair Andrea Vásquez visited more than a dozen campuses. Through meetings and one-on-one conversations with members, she saw the grassroots backing that the Professional Staff Congress had garnered throughout CUNY.

“I cannot wait to get into the campuses and begin to help build new PSC local leaders,” she told Clarion. “I believe that the new and experienced delegates who will represent HEOs across the university will be quite a team of leaders.”

Vásquez, a member of the PSC’s bargaining team and one of the 53 union members who was arrested this past November for civil disobedience outside CUNY headquarters, was one of many new chapter leaders elected in the PSC local chapter elections last April. Most candidates ran uncontested, although incumbents were challenged in elections at the College of Staten Island (CSI) and Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). With some veteran union activists stepping down, some new leaders assumed local leadership positions. Now that a contract is settled and ratified, the heads of local chapters plan to build on the momentum created in the contract campaign to ensure that the contract is implemented and enforced.

NEW AND OLD

“Our chapter is rich with both seasoned and newly engaged leaders,” Geoff Kurtz, the newly elected chapter chair of the Borough of Manhattan Community College, told Clarion. “We hope to take the energy that the contract campaign is generating and turn it to campus issues, including a campaign for teaching-load mitigation.”

The new chapter heads include activists, scholars and new-media innovators. Kurtz has written widely on national electoral politics. Vásquez, in her roles at the Graduate Center’s New Media Lab and the American Social History Project, has helped create digital archives and collaborative multimedia websites. New York City College of Technology Chapter Chair Benjamin Shepard has written about the changing power of public space in his book The Beach Beneath the Streets: Contesting New York City’s Public Spaces. Also new to their positions are Lehman College Chapter Chair Robert Farrell and Queensborough Community College Chapter Chair Edmund Clingan. The new representatives took office on May 27.

CONTESTED SLATES

At BMCC, all New Caucus candidates were elected and drew between 205 to 240 votes. James Hoff, who ran as an independent for one of the 10 spots representing the chapter at the delegate assembly, received 74 votes in his unsuccessful bid.

Elections in every race at the College of Staten Island were contested.

Incumbent CSI Chapter Chair George Emilio Sanchez won reelection despite a challenge by Vasilios Petratos (a former CSI chapter chair). Going forward, Sanchez, who ran on the Brand New Day/New Caucus slate, said he plans to “maximize [the chapter’s] efforts to address numerous local issues.” Central to building union activism, Sanchez said, is increasing member participation.

“[We need to continue to] create stronger relationships across departments, divisions, schools and the overall campus, so we can all have a visceral understanding of the meaning of solidarity,” Sanchez told Clarion.

The newly elected leaders will serve three-year terms. Half of the chapters held elections for local leaders this year; the other half will vote in Spring of 2017. Union-wide elections for officers and the Executive Council took place last year and will be held again in the Spring of 2018. Both local officers and union-wide officers serve three-year terms.